Hail to the Lord’s Anointed! - Emmanuel Baptist Church

This upcoming Sunday, our journey through the storyline of the Bible will finally bring us to Jesus. We’re going to be singing a new song in our service this week (and over the coming weeks) to celebrate how Jesus is the culmination of all that we’ve seen in the Scriptures so far. It’s called “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed.” You can listen to the song in the video below, and can also read the lyrics here.

This song’s melody and arrangement are new, but the words are from a hymn over one hundred years old, which was itself an adaptation of Psalm 72. As we learned in the sermon about the Davidic Covenant, Psalm 72 is full of references that clearly connect the Son of David to the promised one spoken of in Genesis 3:15 and 22:17-18. As this page explains, “Psalm 72 is a prayer for blessing upon God’s anointed king, probably intended for use in a liturgy for coronation. Later Jewish traditions and the early church saw in it a description of Messiah’s righteous reign.”

“Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” is masterfully written, and makes clear who the words of Psalm 72 are really about: Jesus Christ, David’s greater Son (Matthew 1:1). Can’t wait to sing it with you on Sunday!